Romney’s son comes calling Moscow for private business opportunities

Nov 05, 2012

Dadan Upadhyay

specially for RIR

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama walk past each other on stage at the end of the last debate at Lynn University, Monday, Oct. 22, 2012, in Boca Raton, Fla. Source: AP

Matt Romney has spent time with his father on the campaign trail along with the candidate’s four other sons.

As Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was
heavily engaged in the end-game of his campaign against US incumbent President
Barack Obama, Matt Romney, the second of Romney’s five sons arrived in Moscow
last week before the presidential election scheduled to be held on Tuesday, to
seek business opportunities-Russian investors, to be exact- for his
California-based real estate company Excel Trust. The Republican presidential
contender’s son is a senior vice president at Excel Trust that focuses on
shopping centres largely in states from California to Florida and up to
Pennsylvania. The company distributes 90 percent or more of its taxable income
in the form of a dividend, in order to help investors avoid double taxation
under the law.

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The news of junior Romney’s unexpected visit
to the Russian capital, just days before the election, was instantly picked up
by the Western media outlets since it was first published in the New York Times
on Thursday, because his father had vowed during the campaign to take tougher
stance towards Russia, calling it “our No. 1 geopolitical foe” and confront the
Kremlin with “more backbone” than Obama, if elected US President. In
the final presidential debate with Obama last month, Romney said that he
was “not going to wear rose-coloured glasses when it comes to Russia or Russian
President Mr Vladimir Putin.”

In his presidential campaign, Mitt Romney accused
his rival Obama of not putting enough pressure on Russia over major
international issues, including the ongoing Syrian conflict, Iran’s nuclear
programme and the Kremlin’s crack down on the opposition in Russia. He also
slammed Obama’s “reset” policy to improve US relations with Russia, accusing
him of caving into Moscow’s pressure on the deployment of missile defence
shield in the East Europe and conceding concessions during negotiations on the
strategic nuclear arms treaty with Russia.

Negotiations between Russia and the United States
on the missile defence project have stalled over Washington's reluctance to
give Moscow legally-binding guarantees that the shield will not be used against
it.

Washington and NATO say they need the nuclear
missile shield to counter the threat of missile attacks from Iran. Russia says
the project could pose a threat to its national security and has threatened a
host of countermeasures.

Matt Romney has spent time with his father on the
campaign trail along with the candidate’s four other sons. “It was a trip
that has been planned for some time,” a spokesman for the Excel Trust told
the New York Times, stressing that any travel he made to Moscow on behalf of
the Excel Trust was strictly “private” and it would have “nothing to do with
anything governmental.”

According to the New York Times, during his
visit to Moscow, the junior Romney reportedly delivered a reassuring
message to Putin that if elected president, his father wants a good
relationship between the two countries.

“But while in Moscow, (Matt) Romney told a Russian
known to be able to deliver messages to Putin that despite the campaign
rhetoric, his father wants good relations if he becomes president, according to
a person informed about the conversation,” the paper said.

On the face of it, it may look normal for Matt to
send a reassuring message to Putin when the US presidential
race was neck and neck, with Obama a slight favourite to win a second term,
according to US state and national polls.

In fact, Putin has been more diplomatic in his
statements about Romney, saying he sees both an upside and downside to his
sharply critical statements about Russia.

“He (Romney) has once again confirmed the rectitude
of our Russian approach to the issue of missile defence…He enhanced our
negotiating positions on this sensitive and important issue,” Putin said
at a press conference on September 11, adding he thought Romney's criticism of
Russia was largely a campaign tactic.

Putin also said that the fact that Romney considers
Russia an enemy “is a minus,” but he is grateful to Romney for his “frankness.”

“I am grateful that he forms his position so
freely,” Putin said, adding that he is ready to work with Romney in case the
latter wins this year’s presidential election.

Commenting on Matt Romney’s reported secret
messages to Putin, the Washington Post said that assuming that Romney’s son was
downplaying the rhetoric that Matt Romney was correct about how his father
would govern, it would seem to portray the presidential candidate’s
anti-Russian stance as more about campaign politics than about the foreign
policy of a hypothetical Romney administration.

“In other words, it suggests that Romney would
follow a Russia policy a bit more like Obama’s,” it noted.

According to the analysts, it seems less
significant in pure foreign policy terms, if one takes into account whatever
political embarrassment junior Romney might or might not have caused to his
father’s campaign. It may be recalled, after all, as many observers also
pointed out following the third presidential debate, Romney spelt out a foreign
policy, both in specifics and in worldview, not so different from President
Obama’s. It is only natural for candidates to stress their “tough” diplomacy
during a campaign but show more flexibility and cooperation once in office.

Romney's opponents, Republicans and Democrats
alike, immediately jumped on his remarks of tougher stance against Russia and
used them as an opportunity to paint the candidate as out of touch on foreign
policy issues.

The USSecretary of State Hillary
Clinton hit back against Romney's comments that Russia is America's “No. 1 geopolitical
foe."

“I think it's somewhat dated to be looking
backwards instead of being realistic about where we agree, where we do not
agree," Clinton said, labeling Romney's words as "dated," while
there were more pressing matters of concern in global affairs.

"If you take a look at the world today, we
have a lot of problems that are not leftovers from the past, but are of the
moment. In many of the areas where we are working to solve problems, Russia has
been an ally." Clinton said.

As Romney continued his tough talk against
Russia during the campaign, blasting Obama’s “flexibility” to the Kremlin,
Russian analysts called his remarks an election ploy that showcases his lack of
foreign policy experience.

“Everything he is saying now is, first of all,
steeped in stereotypes, and secondly, follows the logic of the election
campaign, in which he tries to address as sharply as possible everything Obama
has done,” Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, said.

While some experts agree that the Republican
candidate’s Russia rhetoric is mostly heated election talk, they also see the
truth behind the stereotypes that pitch the US against Russia as traditional
rivals.

“Let’s be realistic: Russia is the only nation in
the world that can destroy the United States,” said Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy
director of the Institute of the USA and Canada at the Russian Academy of
Sciences.

“Just for this simple fact, Russia is a foe,”
Kremenyuk said, adding Romney was “looking for an enemy” against which he can
consolidate hawkish Republican support.

While Romney has said he would "reset the
reset" in US-Russian ties, he has not said what exactly he
would do differently beyond taking a tougher approach. Given US
interests in a cooperative relationship with Russia, some analysts think Romney
may have to tone down his rhetoric if wins the White House.

"He may discover the value of Russia as a
partner on some issues," says Andrew Kuchins, the head of the Russia
programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
said last month that Moscow and Washington must do more to strengthen relations
because the “reset” in ties cannot continue forever.

“Instead of dwelling on the name of this or
that stage, we should think about how to develop our relations. Or, again using
computer specialists’ terminology, we should update the software,” Lavrov told
leading Russian business daily newspaper Kommersant.

Lavrov said that deepening economic cooperation
would help improve ties between the former Cold War enemies but that some moves
would have to wait until after the US presidential election.